You regain consciousness in the conference room of your office where you work a boring job. This is the last place you remember being before starting your adventure. The improv troupe is finishing its pitch with a fun little game called “guess the penis”. Was it all a dream? Doubtful. You can’t fall asleep unless you plug your nose and you’ve been snot-free all month.

The troupe finishes and exits the conference room, but not before stopping at the coffee table and stuffing their pockets with sugar and used tea bags. You’re not sure if it’s another bit or if they’re full of shit but that’s the least of your concerns. Your co-workers start muttering to each other about how they’d rather the company spend money to hire a graffiti artist to paint new male/female signs on the bathroom doors than on improv lessons from a bunch of giddy fuckers. Normally you’d jump at the chance to gab with the gang but you find yourself utterly confused.

Your head is swimming and you don’t notice your friend Gina waving in your face.

Gina Bioffo, your work friend

“Hello? Hello?! Snap out of it. What’s wrong with you?”

You do indeed “snap out”, rub your eyes and look down to see you’re wearing your regular office clothes. You’re definitely back for real this time and a flood of relief passes over you as well as an urge to go shopping. You smile at Gina.

“I think I had a crazy dream or something. Sorry, I’m totally out of it,” you say.

“Were you in that Jesus thing too?” Gina asks.

“What? Uh, maybe. You mean the Advent calendar adventure?”

“Yeah it happened to me too. I asked the glow straight up what was going on and it told me I was auditioning to be the new Jesus. Pretty weird. I didn’t get the job, obviously, and I guess you didn’t either. I saw you in line there. Fucked up, eh?”

You don’t understand why she’s being so nonchalant and you also don’t understand how any of what you did could be about Jesus, save for the Advent part. You tell this to Gina and she says:

“I thought it was pretty obvious, I mean you had to practice a lot of patience, co-exist with Santa Claus, perform some magic, meet tons of people, kiss people you’d rather not kiss, help out the less fortunate, talk to animals, do a bit of farming, meet with aliens, not eat a whole lot, be focused on your hair, that sort of thing. Sounds like Jesus to me. As for me being so calm? They don’t call me ‘Chill Gates’ for nothing. Come on, lets go draw.”

You’re not entirely satisfied and still wonder why you, Gina and those others were chosen to audition but some things in life are best left unanswered. Ho ho ho, it’s over.

DVD COMMENTARY

Thanks for reading this year’s Advent calendar. It got tough toward the end because I had to do Christmas shopping and all sorts of other shit so maybe I rushed it a bit but not bad for making it up as I went along. I hope you weren’t let down. I was going to make the ending about the improv troupe being the best in the world and the entire adventure was you improvising with them or something, but the Jesus angle is more wholesome I think. Thanks again and Happy Holidays! I’ll be back in the new year with jokes, gags, spoofs and essays that will tickle your groan zone.

The part in the movie theatre and chevy chase on the street were my least favourite I think.

POST CREDITS SCENE

It’s a few days later and you walk by a church. Because you have full-on proof that at least some of what church loves is real, you pop in. A choir is practicing a song about not stealing. You freeze when you gaze about the altar to where the cross usually hangs. Instead, there’s a painting that looks like this:

According to the last date gate, you’ve finally reached Christmas Eve. Congratulations! You’re starting to get nervous about the end because you forgot to throw out the raw pork you let your little nephew play with the night before you vanished into this adventure and it’s still sitting on the kitchen counter. Oh well, the spiders will probably get it before it rots anyway.

You’re at the front of a long line in some sort of infinite white space. You look over your shoulder and see that everyone in line is dressed exactly the same as you — white cotton pants and shirt and red canvas shoes. Haircuts have been a big part of your journey and same goes for everyone else, apparently. You’re seeing styles that defy all logic and hope that yours is impressing them as much as they’re impressing you.

It’s kinda like this, I guess

Up ahead in the nothingness, a light glows as if to urge you forward. You take two steps and everyone behind you vanishes, leaving you and the glow. It reminds you of when you got knee surgery and they gave you way too much morphine because you lied and said you weighed 400 pounds.

“What have you learned, child?” booms the glow. It sounds like a cartoon Hippo voiced by Christian Slater.

I’m not sure how old you are but you probably aren’t a kid so you get pissed that this thing more or less called you a small fry.

“On this fucked up trip? Geez I don’t know — always look around for dates in December, don’t mess with Gary Oldman, Santa sucks but his elves are even worse, aliens are nicer than most of my friends, that new Chevy Chase joint probably isn’t worth seeing… um, I’m still no good at puking, I have a high tolerance for Adderall, I’m pretty good at brainstorms, I don’t know, stuff like that.”

Saying it out loud makes you realize that you’ve covered a lot of ground on this adventure, and that your resume is going to look great once you update it with these new experiences.

“One final question: do you get bored easily?”

“Yeah, it’s one of my biggest issues,” you respond without thinking. Maybe you should’ve lied.

“It is good that you did not lie but you still do not have what it will take. Thank you for your time.”

The glow gets brighter and brighter until you have to shield your eyes. Then everything goes black. Then blue, then a colour you’ve never seen before that makes green look like fuckin’ grey. Then “December 24” flashes in your face like, a million times.

What did that thing mean about not having what it takes? I think you’ll find out tomorrow and hopefully you won’t be too disappointed.

You materialize into a large church, finding yourself standing at the back, gazing up at the amazing stained glass:

You thought the autograph on the church flyer might bring to you another film set or maybe a memorabilia shop, but whatever, in the words of your father, “church can be fun if you imagine it being a playground for people who don’t watch TV.”

At the front of the church a guy in robes is talking about Christmas.

“On that cold night, Jesus was born and the angels sang and Santa was not there. The wise men presented the babe with gold, frankincense, myrrh and a little hat that one of their wives knit that has a cute rhino on it. Let us now sing today’s feature hymn. For those of you who cannot sing, please find a pair of corduroy pants underneath the pews which you may use to make fun scraping sounds to the beat.”

The congregation pulls out their hymn books and a few people grab the pants. You look up at the hymn board and see this:

Nice, you’ll only have to stay here a few minutes.

The organist starts ticklin’ and everyone starts singing and scraping pants. You pick up a hymnbook and find a page labelled “December 23”. You figure you might as well belt a few bars before getting out. The song goes like this:

Bethlehem Snow

I was there, I saw the birth, the new King brought to this Earth
The little town of Bethlehem was radiating mirth

But I sold rugs and had to split, my camel packed and ready
I said “goodbye!”, ate some figs and rode on, fast and steady

Before the gates, the sky went dark and a chill filled the air
I looked up to the stars above and white shit fell on my hair

“What the hell?” I asked Denis, my brown camel strong and true
But he just smiled, licked his lips and dropped some sandy poo

Chorus:
Snow in Bethlehem is bullshit even on Christmas Day
You get real cold, your feet get wet and cows eat frozen hay
Women wear more and beer ain’t refreshing and I don’t own a hat
I had to kill my camel Denis and wrap myself in his fat

Now I’d seen a lot of things, including bearded chicks
But it never snows in Bethlehem so I assumed dirty tricks

I punched a man who walked on by because he looked real dumb
By then the snow was four feet deep and my balls were getting numb

I ate some snow because it was free and all the world went black
It wasn’t snow but instead was bleach that had fallen from my sack

Chorus:
Snow in Bethlehem is bullshit even on Christmas DayYou get real cold, your feet get wet and cows eat frozen hayWomen wear more and beer ain’t refreshing and I don’t own a hatI had to kill my camel Denis and wrap myself in his fat

You’ve been to a lot of Christmas services and once sold personalized, old timey Bibles at an amusement park but you’ve never heard this song before. You especially like the kicking beat that sounded more or less like this:

As soon as you sing the last words loud and proud, you start to disappear and feel good knowing that you spent at least a bit of time in church around Christmas. Two more days until you either die or go back home, who knows? Find out more tomorrow!

You’re walking down a decrepit downtown street in a city that looks a lot like Jackson, Mississippi. You won a trip there through the famous “Win a Trip to Jackson” contest that Pringles ran a few years ago. Remember those commercials?

Anyway, up ahead a beggar is seeking change or maybe something else like food or juice. When you get closer you recognize the man as actor Chevy Chase. Looks like you’ve been transported into the movie you were hoping to see the preview for. Pretty cool that you get to meet another celebrity on this journey, the first being Gary Oldman back on December 2. Your career number of celeb encounters has now doubled, the first two being Cheri Oteri and Stone Cold Steve Austin who you saw on a date once when you used to valet cars during university.

“Spare any treats?” Chevy asks with that classic wide-eyed face he sometimes uses.

You move to check your pockets and realize that the outfit you’ve been wearing doesn’t have any. Had you noticed this earlier you would’ve totally had those aliens sew you some.

“How about a joke instead?” you respond.

“I can’t eat one of those but jokes are the candy of the soul,” Chevy says.

You kind of expected him to say “no” and scowl at you, so now you have to come up with a joke. You kind of wish you hadn’t thrown out that “Big Book of Common Gags” that your niece gave you last Halloween. You rely on your natural wit instead.

“How many… uh… how many Thomas Edisons does it take to… screw… I mean invent a lightbulb?”

“Well just one I would suppose,” Chevy says with a smirk. “That’s pretty funny actually.”

“No, wrong. It’s uh… two. Two Thomas Edisons. One to invent the lightbulb and another to… umm… another to market it and… test it?” you stumble. Man, that sucked.

“Sounds like you’re in more trouble than I am and I’m in big trouble. If I don’t get to St. Louis by noon tomorrow my kids are going to explode.”

You had read about the movie’s plot on a small-time Hollywood blog run by a guy who calls himself “Philm” and thought it sounded pretty cool but now you’re not so sure.

Chevy produces a flyer from the breast pocket of the burlap duster he’s got on.

“Take this. Father Ben helped me realize the true meaning of Christmas and taught me enough piano to win the jazz contest, which I’ll need to do to be able afford to buy my wife back from the hackers. After I get my kids back of course.”

BINGO. The Advent date gate that should lead to your next, stupid adventure. You wish he hadn’t further ruined the plot of the movie but it sounds like dog shit so you’ll probably skip it anyway.

“Thanks a lot mister. Can you autograph it for me?” you ask.

“Of course, of course.”

Chevy takes a lump of coal out from under his hat and scribbles something on the flyer. He hands it back.

You were hoping he’d sign it “C. Chase” but since you’re actually in a movie you suppose it makes sense. Weird name for a character though.

The autograph starts to glow and you realize that it represents this phase’s Advent treat. You start to disappear and smile knowing this thing is almost over because you’re tired of doing it every day.

Bet you thought you were going to end up in a chocolate factory! Instead, you’re seated in the middle row of an empty movie theatre. Did you know that chocolate accounts for 56% of all concession stand sales across major American theatre chains? If you didn’t that’s fine because it’s probably not true, but the fact remains that chocolate is a major piece of the movie going experience, which is why the Advent chocolate that the aliens gave you, brought you here.

Speaking of which, you give your head a stroke, checking to see if the hairstyle that E.T. gave you survived the trip. It feels like strands of denim, so yep, it’s still there. You hope it survives all the way home because you’re sure your cousins will get jealous at the annual family Christmas party and it’s definitely their turn. Last year they showed up wearing elbow pads and everyone went nuts. The only other time you felt that jealous was when your local library got Blu-rays before you.

You wouldn’t mind catching a flick right now and hope that in this dimension they got The Hobbit because you like any story where smaller guys don’t complain.

The house lights start to dim, the curtain rises and the projector fires up.

Fuckin’ typical. You don’t even get to see the previews. You were really hoping to catch a glimpse of that new Chevy Chase movie where he plays against type and portrays a poor guy who isn’t cool.

You reluctantly approach the screen and decide to cause a little mischief by punching a hole through it. If you’re not going to be able to see The Hobbit, no one will. Instead of making a perfect, fist-sized puncture, you hand goes through the screen without making as much as a scratch. You quickly understand that this is a Last Action Hero type situation, take a deep breath and walk through the screen into nothingness. Lights, camera, acting!

You gotta add the detergent before you drop the fabric softener, ya know? So read these before you read this. Man, people should add fabric softener to their pools so their bathing suits stay soft all summer.

After touching the artifact you’re transported from the corn fields to an alien craft. You’re on the bridge of the ship surrounded by friendly-looking beings.

“My name translates to ‘Dylan’ in your tongue,” the alien with the biggest dick begins. “But you may call me anything you’d like including ‘Butt Duck’. Our species cares not for such trivial things as names.”

“Pleasure to meet all you shit pads,” you say, extending your hand and testing the limits of this name thing. “You may call me ‘Lord’ or whatever, I guess I don’t care either.” ‘Lord’ was your old college nickname that went extinct once your legendary volleyballs skills diminished after that taco-laden summer of ’06.

“Tell us of your journey and what it is like to have hair,” responds Dylan.

You bring them up to speed on your adventure and they seem pretty into it judging by all the gasps. Then again, maybe gasping is how they piss or something, who knows?

“You have faced many hardships, young warrior. Feel free to rest and eat while we tend to your wounds,” the fattest alien says.

You spend the next couple of hours completely relaxing, eating and getting medical attention from another alien who tells you some really funny stories about a species of aliens who worship twine. You’re chilling in the quarters they provided when Dylan politely knocks, then enters.

“It seems your journey is almost to an end. It might be wise for you to go on your way,” says Dylan. He’s not being pushy or anything but you’re kind of pissed that he’s not letting you hang out.

“Thanks Dog Stain, but why do you think my journey is almost over? This thing could go on forever for all we know,” you retort.

“Earthen Christmas falls on the twenty-fifth moon of December, correct? If your data is accurate, your journey should end on that same day,” he says while staring at your new haircut that the on-ship stylist gave you.

You never really put much thought into it, but he’s probably right. If this Advent thing holds it should all be over after the 25th gate.

“Hmm, you’re right. You guys are smart. You even correctly assumed that the birth mark on my leg is actually a deep set wine stain from that time I went camping and took peyote. I just need to find another date gate and I’ll get out of here. You got anything that says ‘December 20′ lyin’ around?”

Dylan’s head starts to glow and he hums a tune that sounds like a shitty, early Beatles track. Another alien enters the room, its head glowing in the same fashion. It’s holding something.

“Trent, show the Earthling the relic,” Dylan says to the new alien.

Trent hands you a thin, cardboard box-like thing and immediately you recognize it as a classic Advent calendar.

“Where did you get this?”

“We went shopping two days ago in Michigan,” responds Trent.

Upon closer inspection, the calendar is used up until December 20th.

“We have enjoyed your company and your recipe for chili. We never thought to add cinnamon. Good luck and hopefully we will see you again,” says a teary-eyed Dylan.

You want to give him a hug but he smells like dead frogs that have been wrapped in wet carpet. You open the December 20th window on the calendar to find a little chocolate underneath. It looks like this:

You give the aliens a quick wink then pop the chocolate in your mouth. As soon as it starts to melt you disappear, onto your next stop. If only it were another alien craft, that was fun!

You’re plopped into the potato fields of a large farm. Maybe it’s a small farm, you don’t know. Ever seen a small farm? I haven’t. You’re ankle deep in mud and your tum tum feels strange from scarfing that handful of fries in the interrogation room. You don’t feel like doing any hard labour and figure you can nap among the spuds while you wait for something to happen.

Right as your about to drift off to sleep, a farmer pulls up in a purple tractor.

Farmer Luther and his wife, Bambo

“Hey there. There’s another one of them crop circles out in the corn. Take the drone up and take a look, would you?” he asks, nodding toward a small shed. “And stop nickin’ my beets!”

The only crop circle you’ve ever seen live was in your babysitter’s backyard and it wasn’t made by aliens but the babysitter’s boyfriend who was performing a dry-run of the senior class prank, so you’re mildly excited to see another. You wander over to the shed and open the door. Inside the tiny enclosure is a decent sized remote controlled drone, a few watering cans, a shovel, a stack of broken alarm clocks and two cats fucking. You grab the drone, give the cats a wink and head out to the corn.

It takes you five hours but you finally find the corn field in question. Along the way you fall in a pond, meet a wizard, stub your toe and find a time capsule from 1934. All it had in it was newspapers and cigarettes. I’m not going into detail because none of that stuff related directly to the Advent adventure. Wait, the wizard said something about Bethlehem, but he also claimed he could turn toast into DVDs so who cares.

You fire up the drone and launch it across the dry, dead corn. At first you find it tough to watch the drone and not the small LCD screen on the remote that displays the drone’s camera but after awhile you get used to it. If two cats can fuck in a shed, a human can control a flying machine, eh?

You finally manage to position the drone directly above the crop circle and take a couple pictures using the drone’s camera. You’re startled when you get a good look at the image:

Shiiiiitttttt, the Advent date gate! You quickly forget about the drone (it crashes into a garage where a high school band is practicing. The band’s keyboard player, nickname “HardWire”, reprograms it into a flying synthesizer that gains the band much notoriety) and enter the crop circle hoping to find your way off the farm.

You’ve always believed in aliens because there’s no other explanation for volcanoes, and your belief is only strengthened when you find the crop circle area dusted with goo. Lying in the middle of the main circle is a strange-looking device that turns out to be an old modem, but next to the modem is an even stranger item that looks like this:

You’re being interrogated by two cops. Hahahahaha, remember how a donut brought you here? Get it? No? The police invented donuts. Just kidding, the joke is that people assume that the police eat more donuts than anyone else in the world so they get made fun of a lot. It’s dumb because no one makes fun of firefighters for snacking on cod between alarms.

This photo was taken right after you leave

Anyway, there’s a big box of golden fries sitting on the table between you and the cops. The mysterious force behind your Advent adventure has obviously picked up on your hunger and is toying with you like a toddler toying with toys. The two cops are staring right at you and not saying anything so you decide to break the silence before they play hard ball and start burping at you.

“I’m going to have some of these fries if you don’t mind.”

You reach out for them but the woman snatches them before you can take hold. She selects the top fry–the perfect two-incher that got your attention in the first place–and eats it like someone who loves crunchin’ as much as you do. She then presents the box to her colleague who takes what looks like three fries(!), and pretends to eat them before throwing them over his shoulder like a guy discarding his oats because he found a snail in ’em.

The date gate! You gotta find the treat before these two exercise their rights as officers of the law and beat the shit out of you. You say the first thing that comes to mind.

“I was in my backyard, trying to make my own glue out of sugar, whiskey and old scraps of tape and then I went to the store to buy a blender because the tape didn’t dissolve in the liquor like I thought it would. When I got home I gave up, made an angel food cake then fell asleep.”

This was what you did last year on December 18th so it’s not like you’re lying or anything. You remember because the ordeal took up a full six pages in your diary and was featured on 60 Minutes‘ “Science and Innovation” special.

The two cops look at each other and smile.

“That’s the most sane thing I’ve heard all day,” the female cops says.

The male cops slides the box of fries toward you, “I think you deserve these. If they taste funny it’s because we had to investigate them before bringing them into the station, standard protocol. It’s a good thing too because one of them was wearing a cute little wire.”

You figure you’ll disappear once you taste a fry so as not to waste them you grab a whole mitt full and cram them in your hungry ass mouth. Bye bye, it’s magic time!

You can comb through the Internet all you want but the only place you’ll find the COMPLETE Advent adventure is HERE. It’s also begun circulating through the Winnipeg Public Library system so there’s that too.

You’re on a roller coaster ascending a huge hill! You never really liked roller coasters because they always made you go aggro like a queen bee on hive build day 1, but being outside feels good after being cooped up in all those offices you’ve encountered over the last few dimensions.

The roller coaster’s cars are made to look like wheelchairs and you glance over the edge and see this logo on the side of the car:

You hope you have time to buy a t-shirt because it’s a nice logo and because your current shirt smells like plums and vinegar.

The coaster approaches its peak and the teen boy seated beside you goes, “let’s fly!”. You like his enthusiasm but can’t imagine that someone who would say such a thing would be a very popular kid. There was this chick in your high school who would shout out “here we go again” before every exam and she got voted “Least Likely To Turn Things Around” at graduation.

When the coaster drops you feel a rush of excitement and you remember to roll your eyes back into your head to make the team in the photo booth think you’re dying. As you zoom around the track, the kid beside you won’t shut up, basically commentating the whole ride.

“First loop! I call it The Big Asshole hahaha!”

“You’re going to need extra diapers once we enter this turn.”

“Put your hands up over this next drop, I learned it from the Internet.”

“This corkscrew is the stuff of nightmares–don’t you go falling asleep!”

“Pulling into the station, right on time.”

He checks his watch during that last quip and you get the feeling he does this after every roller coaster ride he goes on.

When you stand up you’re surprised to find that you’re slightly nauseous. You’re not worried about puking because you’ve never been good at it and also you realize you haven’t eaten since this adventure began so what’s going to come up, your fuckin’ lungs? Still, you feel something brewing and decide to play it safe. The kid who rode with you is staring at you like you adopted him and since he seems like an expert on the park, you ask, “hey bitch, where’s the nearest barf zone?”

“Follow me, I’ll show you my favourite can.”

He grabs you by the hand and leads you to a pedestrian concourse where he proudly presents the garbage can in question:

Thank goodness, the date gate! You stick your head in and try to let out some vomit but nothing comes out but you still want to honour this garbage can and the giddy teen so you spit. As you track your “hot water”, you see that lying on top of the trash is a half-eaten donut. Because you’re hungry and because this is clearly the only treat within the gate you decide to give it a try. As soon as you bite into it your flavour buds erupt and you’re gone.

Was that anti-climatic? I tried to match the writing with the feeling of being on a bad roller coaster.

You re-appear in a plain, white-walled room, sitting among four others who don’t look very happy.. You assume you’re in a group therapy session of some sort and based on the magic Adderall pill that got you here, you’re thinking you could be within a chic mental hospital. Check out these chairs!

The man in the cream-coloured turtle shirt is babbling on about something.

“I had been watching Night Court 24/7 for a month and recording my own, personal commentary track and life couldn’t get any better. I felt free, I felt engaged, my family would stop in and record guest spots that I obviously erased once they left because it was MY commentary. But I didn’t mind, I liked that they were taking an interest in my passion. Then, as I was finishing season 7 I felt this urge to eat my TV. So I did it, somehow. I don’t remember the hospital visit, the stomach pump or the interview with Yahoo News but I do remember being admitted here, and I think I’m growing. It was really nice of the staff to bake me those remote control cookies because I’ve been tempted, I’ll admit that.”

The woman in the beige smock nods and places a caring hand on the man’s shoulder.

“Thank you Bart, that was very honest and as we say here all the time, ‘honesty isn’t crazy, crazy is crazy and so are a lot of us’. Let’s all keep up our efforts in making sure Bart doesn’t stray into the entertainment centre for another screen lick, the cleaning staff would really appreciate it. Becky, you’re next.”

The woman in white begins, “As Dr. Oggy recommended, I read the biography of Henry Ford and participated in the group viewing of Gone In Sixty Seconds and it helped briefly but as soon as I looked out my window and saw the trout pond I reverted back. I don’t understand why we don’t drive boats and keep cars for leisure! There’s more water than land on Earth! 71 percent!”

“Becky, as you know we here at the hospital don’t disagree with you and are working on changing the way humans view boats. The key to your recovery is to chill out in the meantime.” The doctor then turns to the man in white. “Kenny, your turn and make it quick because I have go to the chapel and apologize to Father Jiff on behalf of Ollie who got in there with his rollerblades again.”

The man in white shifts uncomfortably. Out of all these bad brains, he seems most screwy.

“I don’t know how many times I have to explain this but I’ve been trapped in an Advent calendar and unless I find a December 16 portal I could be trapped here forever.”

Shit! This guy is in the same boat as you are. You almost blurt out “Fuck off, me too!” but you bite your tongue, not because you didn’t want to say it but because the Adderall must be kicking in.

“You’ve been here for seven months, Charlie. We cannot help you if you do not begin to entertain the thought that you all of this is in your head,” the doctor explains tenderly. “Let’s come back to you. Our new patient, why don’t you take a turn addressing the group.”

The doctor turns to you. You’re not sure what to do here. If you tell them that your situation is the same as Charlie’s, it’ll probably help him out and maybe you both can work together and talk about what’s been happening. On the other hand, fuck that guy, you thought you were special and now some random stain is on the same nutty trip you are? You say the first thing that comes to mind.

“Uh, I’m uh… I feel like I might uh… eat a TV too.”

The doctor shakes her head. “Mocking other patients is not what we’re about here unless a mock will help their recovery.” She brandishes a walkie-talkie and speaks into it, “December, please come to the solarium and pick up patient 16.”

Your head snaps back to Charlie whose eyes widen.

“What did you just say?” Charlie asks, rising to his feet.

“Our new nurse will come retrieve patient 16 so we can avoid any further distractions,” the doctor responds.

Charlie responds by backing down into his chair. You can tell he’s waiting for the apparent date gate to arrive, but you know it’s all yours. Right as the Becky burps, a nurse with a wheelchair enters the room.

Charlie immediately makes a run for the chair but is tripped up by Bart, who looks directly into your eyes and says, “Go. Now.”

You stand up and get into the wheelchair. Charlie looks up at you, extending his arm in your direction. “Don’t you dare! That’s my gate!”

You want to say something witty but the only thing you can think of is, “Fuck you, go… eat a TV.”

As December starts wheeling you away you begin to vanish and the next world awaits. You hear a faint, blood-curdling scream behind you from Charlie and start to relax, almost anxious for what awaits.